Dusty Books, Frontier Librarian

Chapter 5

Whales... Monterrey... The Northern Bay... 'Sea Lions'... Natural Bridges... Sea Birds and perils... Ocean Beach... Golden Gate... The Docks... Booking Passage with Alvin Werte... Confusion at the Dock... Books found... Dangers of the Sacramento explained... 'Cajun' food... better than a Hotel...

We passed up the coast with very little event to note. Near one very lowland sea area off the coast of Mexico we did spot a gathering of whales. Seemed to be a breeding ground. There were several ships at anchor that had slaughtered a number of them, cooking out the oil from the flesh on the spot. It smelled to high heaven and was quite unpleasant. Members of the crew told us about various encounters with whales. I don't know about the giant variety in those tales, but these seemed to be gentle bovine creatures that should have been left to their breeding ground, in this writer's opinion. I, of course, am writing this with a light lit by the very whale oil they supply, so there is a conflict of interest, surely. Ah irony! To serve the world and be sacrificed and die in the process; isn't that the way of all flesh, even including our own?

Then according to the crew we were about 90 miles south of San Francisco, near the romantic port of Monterey. The town of that name was located on the ocean fronting a magnificent bay with about a 30 mile horseshoe shape to it. Magnificent trees bent over by the winds from the ocean were at the tip of the bay. It was calm, weather clear and warm, but we did sail through in the middle of the day. According to one of our crew the condition here was foggy until about 11am and then clearing mightily and then foggy again by early evening. If I wasn't off to the gold fields I'd have been tempted to settle here, it was that good a place, this bay on any side of it. It had been the Spanish capitol of California, until just recently when California was made a territory of the United States. Just before we were in full ocean again we came upon a rock covered with seals of all sizes and several breeds. One of the crew said they ate the fish that ate of the kelp beds that were just offshore. He also said very large sharks are sometimes sighted there as well. I think I saw one, but possibly not. These 'Sea Lions' were immensely fat creatures that seemed to bake in the sun. When motivated by food they had some speed I was told, but saw little personal evidence of it. The smaller creature were 'seals'. They were quite graceful in the water and seemed like medium sized dogs, only with flippers. Some have ears very like the good hunting dog.

We passed a place called 'Natural Bridges' which are as described, carved out by the action of the ocean waves on the sandstone cliffs. I think once California gets a bit more populated this could be a tremendous tourist attraction.

We sailed up a coast line as craggy as the east coast, but of course it was on the right sailing north instead of the left! It took some getting used to, since I thought at first we were sailing south. Funny how you get used to certain things.

Sea birds from the rocks and cliffs swooped down on us looking I suppose for food, menacing us with droppings that the crew scampered to clean off the deck. This was thought to be greatly toxic and full of an acidity that ate into the deck if not cleaned up immediately.

We came at length to a long stretch of beach. I don't know if it was the longest stretch we had encountered, but it seemed so. 'Ocean Beach' is what it was called. We knew we were close to the legendary Golden Gate. There was another 'Seal Rock' with a similar assemblage of comatose creatures, then a Cliff area and there it was: The Golden Gate!

It was not much to look at, just a wide mouth to it, and a very wide channel, except on the right was a rather imposing fort fully manned with guns, that I assumed to be formerly Spanish, perhaps. And then we saw what the sailors had been telling us. At first we thought this was the busiest port in the world. It would appear so, since there were so many ships at anchor, several thousand in plain sight. It would seem to me that there were many more we couldn't see. But what was missing was activity. It was a ghost fleet abandoned by crews and left to rot in the bay, and be fouled by sea birds with no one to clean up the acid droppings. No sails, just the masts with beams drooping and bits of line rotting away. Seems there must be something that could be done with these hulks.

We sailed into a pleasant enough dock area, arriving in the late afternoon, met at the boat by literally hundreds of men and boys, some of whom were Chinese fellows with coolie caps and clothing to match, all with carts to a man, to help unload the passenger's luggage and whatever cargo had been brought along. Everything on the dock and in much of what I was to see, looked like new construction, a testimony to the frequent fires that plagued the early city by the bay. I knew the layout from the maps I had studied. I found it to be a little more provincial than I had expected, and was somehow not surprised, but more than a little disillusioned that the gold was not lying about on those very streets ready to be picked up.

The reality of course was that this city was where a lot of business got done, commodities traded and miners outfitted, and the gold, if it was to be found at all, was much to the North and East in a foreboding area called the 'Sierras', at least at the time. Bigger strikes were to be found elsewhere. I would have intimate contact with these mountains soon enough. The Captain did not have the gold fever, preferring to serve others who had. He was philosophical when almost all of his crew except for the 1st mate, the ship's cat with 8 new passengers, and I think the cook and one or two able bodied, yet perceptive, seamen signed off and made immediate departure. It seems there were lots of fellows already coming back that would work for passage back to New York. The Captain did offer to allow me to keep my 'Rum' on board for a few days until I could get passage worked out up the Sacramento River. He even had a name for me to try of an old crewman of his who he thought as how might be in the business of hauling stuff up to the Gold fields via barge or raft or some such.

Trusting the Captain was not pulling out for several days I took him up on his offer. That little cask of rum paying dividends even now.

He wrote me a note of introduction to his friend and former employee. I asked at the harbor master's office and was given directions. The harbor master, less grand and acceptor of larger bribes than our Asuncion official to be sure, had only good things to say about this individual and I felt he was being honest. The fact that he was also offering a line of 'French Postcards' which did not depict any architecture of that country except feminine if you catch my drift, didn't put me off his endorsement. All of that breed 'Harbor Master' that I ran into seemed to be cut out of crooked cloth, at least those I have run into.

His berth ended up being a little rickety pier somewhat haphazardly put together, and to be called rickety in comparison to some of the other contraptions that pass for piers in this city should give you an idea of the nature of it, not to put too fine a point on it. This didn't put me off of this sailor either, allowing for the informal nature of this place and time.

Alvin Werte, pronounced Wertay, had a sail powered little skiff and a serviceable looking raft tied up the pier, also with a mast for a sail. This rig might have come from Louisiana, or at least the design of it, since by his drawl and conduct I am sure that is where Alvin hailed from. He fished off the boat constantly which was a source of food. If he was as good a raft captain as a fisherman I had no doubts I had been referred to the right man for the job. Up in the delta later he was to catch catfish and 'fix us a mess of 'em' as he put it. The New Orleans way of speech has many charming elements, as this fellow had in abundance not even counting his speech.

I did feel it necessary to explain the true nature of my cargo and how it was packed and he was in delight. He thought it was a good joke in 'Old Johnny', who I gathered was the captain's first name. His relatively modest fee arranged, I think modest because he liked me, we set out in the raft along the piers up to the berth in question.

To my dismay I found another vessel in the berth, a much larger packet with a group of gentlemen hustling rice in 100 lb sacks off a Chilean Rice Boat called 'Merceditatis'. It was at least 5 times the size of my former vessel and about as large as my disappointment at my vessel being gone from the pier.

Alvin told me to not get into a lather just yet, and he went to find out about it. Much to my relief the boat had been moved to accomodate (sic) the rice shipment. The Captain had alerted those still on the boat that we were more than likely coming in to pick up the rum. Alvin went off to hire a few fellows to help in the unloading and we were off no less than 20 minutes later, and sailed back leisurely over to Alvin's rickety pier. We were soon tied up. I asked him if we were going to use this raft to go up the Sacramento and he reddened up and almost split his sides laughing. I liked this man, I decided, since he had a sense of humor even though at times one had to determine the motivation for a gleeful outburst.

He explained after he had caught his breath that a little raft like 'dis fellow' would last ''bout a day' on the Sacramento. Spring run off from the Sierra snow fields made parts of it a raging torrent, and an excellent opportunity for the 'salvahge beesnes' to flourish due to wrecks along the banks where it was most treacherous, 'tre dangeroose!' Alvin said, and he never gave me a moments pause to doubt him, his word proving to be his bond that he knew the river from delta to Sacramento almost as good as he knew the bayou at home on the Mississippi Delta.

He found that 'all that was missin' was a mess o' Cajun' people, the locals in his area, his home folks. They were a combination of Canadian French and Indian mixed bred folks who lived on the delta, had practically their own language made up of various parts, and lived in and around the bayou. He said the catfish were bigger there but the water was clearer here so you could catch more fish.

When he heard I never had sampled catfish, or any other New Orleans fare he prepared a few delicacies from his home for me to enjoy; 'etoofay' of delta crawfish, 'beans and rice', the aforementioned 'catfish' who looked like cats with spines for whiskers; whole crawdads miniature lobster looking creatures that were very peppered. Cayenne pepper seemed to be a staple of the cooking.

He also expounded at great length of something he called 'gator'. He described these carnivorous river dwellers with an affection undeserved. I guess it was eat them or they would eat you. To everything he could not reproduce he simply said they tasted like chicken. I have never, despite the rather romantic description and rather obvious relish of my host desired to even see a gator close up, much less am I desirous of it on a bill of fare.

We were going to sail up in his 3rd boat, a much larger raft with a few amenities, as soon as it returned from Sacramento with his twin brother on it, roughly a week. And so it was with great anticipation I awaited its arrival. Had I felt myself better heeled I would have booked separate passage up there and met them later, but I so enjoyed not spending the money and his company made it much easier to bear.

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